IRS Admits to Destroying 30 Million Unprocessed Information Returns
Issue highlights another reason to file and make remittance payments electronically
The Internal Revenue Service admitted it destroyed roughly 30 million unprocessed informational returns from the 2020 tax year.
An audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found the IRS intentionally destroyed these documents, most related to the 1099 series, in March 2021. The documents were part of a backlog of tax returns, which the IRS has struggled to process since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The continued inability to process backlogs of paper-filed tax returns contributed to management’s decision to destroy an estimated 30 million paper-filed information return documents in March 2021,” the report stated. “The IRS uses these documents to conduct post-processing compliance matches such as the IRS’s Automated Underreporter Program to identify taxpayers not accurately reporting their income.”
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